This is really really stupid.

I was probably seven or eight living on a farm. One morning I couldn't sleep and got up around five. I turned on the TV to find the most awesome cartoon I'd ever seen. My mom came in from the barn to go to the bathroom and casually suggested that, had she known I was awake, I could have come and fed the calves. I thought nothing of it.

I can't explain to you how awesome I thought this cartoon was. I committed myself to watching this cartoon. Getting up at five every day wasn't going to be easy, though. That night I set an alarm for five in the morning. I got up and turned on the TV. This time, my mom came in before the calves were fed and decided I would, in fact, be feeding calves that morning. What ensued was an epic struggle involving the TV being turned on and off countless times and probably a small amount of violence.

Obviously, sleep wasn't that important or she would have just sent me back to bed. If it were important that I feed calves, I wouldn't have had the choice to sleep. However, this thing that was extremely important to me wasn't an option.

I spent the rest of my time growing up trying to make any choice I could; maybe more accurately, I tried to make any decision my parents couldn't control. They, of course, didn't usually care for my decision and my life seemed to me to be a constant power struggle for control of me.

In my adulthood, I've turned completely non-functional. Failed out of school, never had a real job, (only!) one suicide attempt. I was more competent at 7 than I am at 27. If it weren't for my wife, the one brights spot in my life, there is no doubt I'd be dead. (How the hell did I get somebody to marry me in this state?)

The cartoon, by the way, was Ronin Warriors. In the episode I got to watch, the red guy was rescuing the green guy from being trapped in stone. I actually watched the whole series just a few months ago. It was the dumbest damned thing I've ever seen. I cried my eyes out the entire time.